Can Evangelicals Be Part of a Pro-Choice Consensus? That’s the question that Blake Ellis, PhD candidate at Rice University, asks over at the History News Network. His answer includes a discussion of Texas Baptists such as Foy Valentine and James Dunn.
Here are a few snippets from Ellis’s column which is based on his upcoming article “An Alternative Politics: Texas Baptists and the Rise of the Christian Right, 1975-1985″ to be published in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly.
Despite a flurry of articles questioning the potency of the Christian Right in national politics, the movement continues to demonstrate its stranglehold over Republican politicians. The most recent example of its influence was Republicans’ successful effort to remove birth control funding from Barack Obama’s stimulus package. The provision would have made it easier for states to offer contraception through Medicaid to women who are not currently covered by the program. Despite substantial evidence that government-funded birth control reduces the number of abortions, white evangelicals have been among its fiercest opponents. They have found frequent allies in congressional Republicans, who seem to oppose government funding of just about any new social program.
Such tactics have made it clear that the goal of the anti-abortion movement is not a reduction in the abortion rate, but rather strict control over the private sexual decisions of the country’s citizens….
Ellis proceeds to offer a “history lesson” on the debate about abortion within “evangelical communities.”
Those commentators need a history lesson on the debate about abortion within evangelical communities. In fact, the politicization of the abortion issue during the 1970s was hotly contested by many evangelicals, some of them from denominations that were quite conservative.
The most instructive example of this robust debate is the reaction of Texas Baptist leaders to the attempt by some evangelicals to force the issue into the political arena. In Texas, a state known for its conservative politics and religion, the country’s largest statewide group of Baptists opposed Jerry Farwell’s early efforts to make abortion a central focus for evangelicals. As Falwell railed against abortion rights and pushed the issue to the top of the evangelical agenda, Texas Baptists were busy articulating an entirely different response to the subject.
I get the feeling that Ellis spent too much time at Baylor reading the oral memoirs of a select few Texas Baptists and not enough time reading the multiple texts/studies that deal with Texas Baptists. There has never been a true grassroots movement of Texas Baptists on behalf of reproductive issues. Since both of his subjects - James Dunn and Foy Valentine - once headed up the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Ellis should have reviewed the CLC’s history of “Speaking To But Not For.”
Under Dunn and Valentine, the CLC often took positions that did not reflect the majority opinion of folks in the pews.
I think it’s safe to say that very few Texas Baptists were card-carrying members of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights like Foy Valentine.
Valentine would probably be greatly offended to be dubbed an “evangelical” by Ellis. This is perhaps Valentine’s most popular quote:
We are not evangelicals. That’s a Yankee word. They want to claim us because we are
big and successful and growing every year. But we have our own traditions, our own
hymns and more students in our seminaries that they have in all of theirs put together.
We don’t share their politics or their fussy fundamentalism, and we don’t want to get
involved in their theological witch-hunts.
Ellis concludes:
Mindful of the pro-choice histories of southern evangelicals like Valentine and Dunn, progressives can build new alliances that might undermine the power of Christian Right leaders who would apparently rather block government support for poor women than work to actually reduce the number of abortions. In doing so, activists might achieve a pro-choice consensus that includes many members of evangelical communities. By reaching out to evangelicals (and other people of faith) who are flexible on reproductive issues, progressives can push the conversation in a far more fruitful direction. That discussion should include serious measures to reduce the incidence of abortion, while also affirming the right of every woman to make her own reproductive choices. And despite the howls of congressional Republicans, poor women are no less deserving of that right than anyone else.
James Dunn wasn’t exactly the pro-choice activist that Ellis paints him to be. And Foy Valentine wasn’t exactly a proud “evangelical.”
Nonetheless, it’s an interesting article. Check it out.
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Once again generalizations abound. I don’t know where this man gets his information, but I think there are a lot of us in Texas who would not oppose birth control if the main method of controlling birth was not abortion. I have great respect for both Valentine and Dunn. I just happen to disagree with them on this issue, as, I think, do most Texas Baptists.
[...] Aaron Weaver finds some value in the argument that evangelicals can be part of a pro-choice consensus. Blake [...]
I should say that I’m well aware that Foy Valentine would not be thrilled to be termed an “evangelical.” In the longer article, I make some mention of that fact. But writing about this subject means dealing with at least some generalizations. Evangelical, fundamentalist, Christian Right: these are terms that historical actors often reject, but that scholars are bound to use anyway. I try to be as fair as possible, but for purposes of this discussion, Valentine works as an “evangelical.”
The point is not really whether he would have liked to be called an evangelical. The point (at least for a broad scholarly audience) is that all members of conservative denominations did not (and do not) follow the strict abortion orthodoxy of leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson.
I’d never claim Dunn or Valentine as anything approaching “pro-choice activists.” Compared to most of us in the academy, they are downright conservative on these issues. But I do think it’s worth noting that such prominent Southern Baptists offered a different take than the one we generally hear. And scholars must contend with the fact that the Paul Presslers and Paige Pattersons of the world did not speak for all Southern Baptists as they pushed to politicize reproductive issues.
Best,
Blake
I should also add (but it goes without saying) that I welcome the discussion of my article and very much appreciate the link. We may not agree on all issues, but I hope we share a desire to insist that people of faith be considered in all their complexity by the academic community. Having grown up in an evangelical church (unlike Valentine, we used the term proudly), I am convinced that conservative believers do not always get the credit they deserve from academics. You’d be surprised how many historians I have talked to who are completely floored that ANY Southern Baptists would not march in lockstep with the convention’s leaders. Thanks again for the comments and discussion.
Bro. Ellis: I appreciate the article and the dialogue here. It ias healthy for all of us to be able to disagree without rancor. Thanks for puting your thoughts out there for us to ponder.
“The point is not really whether he would have liked to be called an evangelical. The point (at least for a broad scholarly audience) is that all members of conservative denominations did not (and do not) follow the strict abortion orthodoxy of leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson. ”
Well, there has been scholarly discussion among historians as to whether Southern Baptists are indeed “evangelicals.” Back in 1983, three prominent Southern Baptist historians debated the question and later published the book, Are Southern Baptists “Evangelicals”? But to your point quoted above:
Your point that members of the Southern Baptist Convention did not always follow the strict abortion orthodoxy of the Religious Right seems, to me at least, to be a well-known fact among historians of southern religion and especially known among the average person who is familiar with Baptists in the South. The SBC Controversy of the 1980s was after all, the most significant fundamentalist takeover of an American religious institution ever.
As the popular fundamentalist narrative goes, before 1979 the Southern Baptist Convention was run by pro-abortion, anti-prayer, theological liberals who believed that the Bible was filled with errors and denied various traditional Christian doctrines (virgin birth, physical resurrection of Christ, miracles, etc.). Thus, a group of conservatives led by Paige and Paul started a Reformation or Resurgence that recaptured the SBC and ultimately ran the liberals out of town.
That’s the popular conservative/fundamentalist interpretation of the long SBC Controversy. Granted, I don’t believe that there were any Southern Baptist leaders who were literally pro-abortion. Who is, after all? But many within the pre-1979 leadership spoke about abortion in a pro-choice language. And ultimately, those so-called “liberals” (actually, moderates in most cases) were booted out of their leadership positions and then left the SBC for other Baptist organizations. The fact that there were once prominent pro-choice Southern Baptists seems well-known - Robert Novak made mention of this fact in a Wall Street Journal article about Mike Huckabee just last year.
So, I agree that members of historically conservative denominations like the SBC have not always followed the strict abortion orthodoxy of the Christian Right. But you also wrote above that members of conservative denominations like the SBC “do not” (present tense) follow the strict abortion orthodoxy. The Foy Valentine’s have long since disassociated themselves from the Southern Baptist Convention. I do not know of a present-day well-known or semi-well known pro-choice Southern Baptist leader. They don’t exist. The abortion litmus test prevailed in the SBC long ago…
“You’d be surprised how many historians I have talked to who are completely floored that ANY Southern Baptists would not march in lockstep with the convention’s leaders.”
On the abortion issue, I do not know of any well-known Southern Baptists/Southern Baptist leaders who have not marched in lockstep with the SBC’s Leaders over the past 15-nearly 20 years.
Ken: Thanks for your comments. When the full article comes out (it will be minus my own political opinions, of course, unlike pieces for HNN) I’d love to get your comments. We might not see eye to eye but I will be genuinely interested in your reactions.
Big Daddy Weave: I don’t have much to quarrel with in your interpretation of the popular SBC narrative. I certainly agree that there were no “pro-abortion” SBC leaders, even before 1979.
It may be a reflection of different circles, but when I tell people that people like Foy Valentine and James Dunn made the claims they did in the late 1970s and 1980s, most academics are surprised. They assume that Southern Baptists were always stridently opposed to abortion rights.
In the article, my claim is not that current SBC leaders are pro-choice; the opposite is true. I simply point out that such leaders once existed and then suggest that we can learn something from that history. My sense is that many conservative to moderate believers of today view the abortion wars as “so yesterday” and want to seek common ground on the issue (particularly to reduce the incidence of abortion in this country).
I’d also love to send you a copy of the full-length article. I think a lot of the disagreements we have mentioned on here will be less stark. In a longer format, one has time to trace historical nuance and offer a fuller discussion of these controversies. At the moment, I think we more or less agree about the history, but not necessarily about the current implications of that history.
Best,
Blake
BDW, during the 1970s, the diversity on abortion views in the SBC was fairly large. The SBC passed 2 moderately pro-choice resolutions at annual conventions during the 1970s–which means that these views were certainly broader than Dunn and Valentine. Henlee H. Barnette shared Dunn’s cautiously pro-choice views and Paul D. Simmons was, like Valentine, a founding member of the RCAR (now the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights).
The view that Scripture taught that life did not begin until breath was taught by many SBC theologians and biblical scholars during the ’60s and ’70s–at both SBTS and SWBTS and these views found themselves into many pulpits. Not until c. 1979 does anti-abortion begin to become a litmus test for SBC fundamentalists.
You see this in other fundamentalist and evangelical circles during the same time period: Christianity Today’s contributors contained a wide range of views on abortion until the late 1970s. They ran an editorial supporting Roe v. Wade in its immediate aftermath. Even a fundamentalist as conservative as Norman Geisler defended abortion in extreme circumstances in the first edition of his book on Christian ethics. (This is changed to pro-life absolutism in the 2nd edition with ZERO indication that the author ever held another view–or that there has ever been debate over this within Christianity!)
Even after pro-life absolutism becomes widespread among evangelicals and Baptists, artificial birth control is assumed to be legitimate. Not until the late 1990s does that change. I think it is a result not of deeper theological reflection but of working alongside conservative Catholics in the anti-abortion movement.
As an aside, I think Obama’s removal of birth control from the stimulus was strictly tactical–getting Democrats to leave out everything which doesn’t appear to work toward economic stimulus so as to attract less GOP criticism. Expect that funding to come back in the budget–where, because of reconciliation, only 51 votes are needed in the Senate.